The Piper and the Gunsmith
by Blinky the Tree Frog
Summary: In the camps they took away everything. Your possessions, your time, your dignity. But your pride and conviction? Sometimes you felt like you had to hold onto them, because they were all you had left.
1. Part One

And now for something completely different... 

This story is finished, but I'm going to post it in more easily digestible chunks, one a day. I hope you enjoy it. I hope people _read_ it. I'd appreciate any comments, large or small, positive or negative.

**Disclaimer:** The characters belong to DC, though I'm not sure whether they'd ever have thought of using them in quite this way. No profit made, entertainment only.

**Author's Notes:**

I can't believe I wrote this.

There are several reasons for this disbelief, not the least of which is the length. Lately I've had a hell of a time getting anything over a couple of thousand words done, this one rounds out at about eleven and a half thousand.

Second is the genre; this is... well, it's not the type of thing I'd normally write.

Actually, strike that. It is, and it isn't. It is, at heart, a romance, and that's not something I tend to favour in my writing. On the other hand, it's a very 'Blinky' romance, full of darkness and heavy on plot. It's also a sort of an elseworlds, the DC name for an AU. I say sort of, because we see it through the eyes of someone who is from the main DC universe, thus certifying that the main universe is indeed still the main universe.

And speaking of the person we see it through the eyes of...

People who read this who happen to know quite a lot about the DC universe will no doubt wonder why the heck I've chosen Fauna Faust, a bit character who only showed up about ten years ago in the ill-fated second "Outsiders" title, and then as a villain, as a protagonist. To which I can only reply, "Well, I had this idea, you see..."

The idea is for a team, set in the DC universe and featuring DC characters. It's a team... quite unlike any other team out there, I can absolutely guarantee it. I have ideas for stories about this team. I haven't, however, written any of them, beyond a few notes. Usually I'm loath to include elements in my writing that rely in any way on something not yet written. And yet here I am, trying to justify it. The only thing I can say is that I really wanted to write this now, in this way, because I really thought it _fit_.

In any case, as with all of my writing, I don't believe you need to understand who the characters are and where they are at to enjoy this story. I always try my hardest to explain that within the context of the story, and I hope that this piece is no different.

I hope you enjoy it. I had a hell of a time writing it. Take that as you wish :-).

Oh, and thanks to Carmen Williams for betaing. It wouldn't have been half as decent without you :-).

* * *

**The Piper and the Gunsmith**

"You okay?"

Fauna Faust jumped and looked up from where she was perched on a rusted sewer pipe. "My ankle's a bit sore. I think I twisted it a little while we were running away. Uh. Where's Piper?"

"Making sure we weren't followed. He'll be back soon; don't worry. We have the whole rescue thing down to a fine art."

"Thank you. I didn't know what I was going to..."

Her companion shrugged. "It's what we do. The Piper and the Gunsmith, fearless rebels on the side of good and righteousness, and all that jazz. And we're cute too." He nodded to her leg. "You can rest it now, anyway. This place isn't exactly cosy, but the government doesn't know about it, so it's a great little cubby hole." The Gunsmith yawned and sat himself down cross-legged on the grimy floor.

"I'm guessing it's about as cosy as sewers get. Do you and Piper live here?"

"We don't live anywhere, sweetcakes. This is a safe house, that's all. Staying still means someone might find us; we're smarter than that."

"The government?"

"Or evil minions of such. You know, I'm almost starting to believe you when you say you come from another world."

Fauna frowned helplessly. "I know it's hard to accept..."

"Hey, I didn't say I _did_ believe you. No offence, but you could just be nuts." He hauled his pack off his back, pulled a gun from it and started to take it apart with expert precision, cleaning the pieces as he went.

"It's true! I swear I don't belong here. I mean, I don't want to be rude, but to me this place is really twisted."

He snorted. "Hate to break this to you, toots, but it's not exactly that wonderful to us either."

"I'm sorry. I just... I'm only vaguely sure about how I got here and I'm afraid I'm not going to get home. Right now I can't even think of any way _to_ get home. And I'm tired, and I'm cold, and none of the animals here listen to me, and I haven't seen my friends since I woke up, which means I don't know whether they're somewhere here or still safe at home and probably trying to find me. And now I just got rescued by someone who looks a lot like one of my team mates, except he isn't, and he's teamed up with you, and the government's after me, which would be bad enough if the government wasn't apparently some kind of full-on evil Nazi operation."

The Gunsmith managed to tactfully ignore the rest of her rant and zero in on the very end. "A what operation?"

She blinked. "You don't know what Nazis are? Okay, this is worse than I thought. Or maybe it even makes sense, I don't know. Look, there are still superheroes here, right?"

"Depends on what you define as a superhero and why they're so much better than a normal hero."

"People with powers. You were floating on air back then..."

"Anti-gravity boots. Don't go on an obscenely dangerous rescue mission without them."

"Oh. Well look, _are_ there people with powers? Metas? And magic people? There is magic, right?"

"I don't know much about magic, but there are a few of your...metas? Is it? There're a few of them around. Fewer that are free. The government doesn't like them; too scared of the power. There's a special camp outside of Gotham where the government keeps the ones that aren't killed flat-out. God knows what goes on there." The reassembled gun was placed neatly on the ground, and he pulled another from the pack. "Pity, really. A few more would make the whole rebelling shtick a damn sight easier."

"Couldn't you rescue them?"

"From the camps? Hell, we can't even get people out of the normal ones, and that one has extra tight security. Not a chance, in other words."

"You said something about how you escaped from the camps, though..."

He looked at her curiously. "I would have thought that was obvious."

"I don't..."

He frowned, sizing her up. Then he moved his hand upwards and tapped the stylised G that was seared around his eye. "You seriously don't recognise this, do you?"

"It's a tattoo?"

"It's a brand. It's around the eye, which means it comes from the camps. Means _I_ come from the camps. A guarantee that I can't go back to 'normal' society, at least without a damn good make-up job everyday, and you have no idea how much trouble getting the resources for that is." He abandoned his cleaning and leaned back against the wall, looked at her thoughtfully. "That's one of the biggest problems with freeing people from the camps. What do they do after? We can't look after a bunch of weak and half-starved escapees, they'd just slow us down and get _everyone_ caught. Breaking in and out of those places is near impossible, and once they're out, keeping them alive _is_ impossible. Everybody loses in the end."

"Oh. I mean, I don't really know what to... I mean, that's just...just _shitty_."

He let out a bark of laughter. "I think that about sums it up, yeah. If you do come from another world, at least it teaches people to identify shittyness."

"Strangely enough, I kinda figured it out on my own." She sighed and abandoned the uncomfortable pipe, sliding down to the floor. There was silence for a few seconds, and the Gunsmith went back to his cleaning.

"Uh, G? Is it?"

"Just G is fine. Technically it's Giovanni, but no one calls me that anymore."

"Sure, okay. G. That's actually what I was going to ask. I mean, I assumed that the tattoo stood for your name, especially with the P that Piper has. But if it's from the camps..."

"It stands for Gypsy. And no, I'm not an actual Rom. I was a Carney, travelled around with the circus. The government started cracking down on 'itinerants' and we all got tarred with the same brush. They said we were going off to do more 'productive' work. Nice of them, hey?"

"Geez. And... umm... Piper's?"

"He got put in the camps because he was gay. Use your imagination, sunshine."

"I don't under... oh."

"Charming, isn't it?"

"Charming." She bit her lip and silence reigned again. Then she blurted out: "How do you live like this? I mean, seriously. Always on the run and knowing that any good you do is only a drop in the ocean. And you can't even have any sort of life and... I couldn't do that. I don't understand... I mean, you smile! How can you smile?"

He was smiling now, looking at her in what looked like amusement. "I'm a sunny kinda guy?"

"I'm serious!"

"I like smiling."

"That's not an answer."

"You seriously want an answer?"

"I wouldn't have asked otherwise!"

He stretched and shifted position. "This life isn't as bad as you make it out to be. I mean, you may not be particular to running, but I'm used to being on the move. That's one reason."

"There are lots of reasons?"

"Three main ones. Second, well, you know what it feels like to con yourself into a government holding facility and waltz out with their prisoner while the bastards stand around oblivious?"

"Really, really paranoia-inducing?"

"Hey, I like stretching my skills to the max for a worthy cause."

She looked incredulous. "You like doing this to get a rush?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Doing it just for the rush, I would have got myself killed years ago."

"So why haven't you?"

G's expression softened, and he shrugged in a way that was a little too casual. "I couldn't leave him," he said simply.

"Oh." Fauna blinked and found herself smiling a little. "That's kinda sweet."

"Sweet? I'm sorry, no. Sweet is shallow. We've been through too much to ever be shallow."

"I didn't mean..."

G offered her a light smile. "I know you didn't. It's okay."

"Right." She shuffled awkwardly. "So, um. Did you meet in the camps? I mean, you don't have to tell me if...if..."

Her companion finished reassembling the gun he'd been working on and aimed it at the far wall, checking the sights. "If what?"

"Well, you know. If it's too distressing or..."

He looked back at her, his expression unreadable. "Can I ask why you're interested?"

"I don't know. I just... The stuff you're talking about is so... And you seem so..."

"So...?"

"Sane? Which is good! I just... What was it like? How did you cope?"

G gave her a thoughtful look and put down the gun. "We still have plenty of waiting time. I'll tell you if you want. As stories go, it's not much different from the stories of thousands of other people who ended up at the camps."

"Except yours has a happier ending, right?"

A faint smile played across his face. "There is that, yes."

"I'd like to hear it, but only if you don't mind. I mean, you don't know me at all. For all you know I could be some kind of government plant that you were supposed to rescue and give all your secrets to."

"You're not." G grinned at her.

She found herself grinning back despite herself. "You're that sure?"

"Of course. I'm way too good to make a mistake like that."

She smirked. "Okay, now you're _so _just being an arrogant bastard."

G shook his head in amusement. "You wouldn't be the first person to say it. In all seriousness, though, there's nothing in this story that a government agent wouldn't already know, so I'm hardly taking any chances."

"Ah, okay."

"So make yourself comfortable."

She gave the damp, dirty room a quick glance and wrinkled her nose. "Right."

He rummaged around his pack and produced a thin, tightly rolled cushion. "Here, sit on this. I told you, this isn't the most comfy of environments, but at least it's safe."

"I didn't..."

G held up a hand to stop her, and then leaned back against the wall, his expression fading into reflection.

She unrolled the cushion and settled down to listen.

* * *

"As I said, I grew up in a circus. My family were trapeze artists and acrobats. 'The Flying Jesses', that was our stage name. Guess my parents thought that 'The Flying Giuseppes' didn't roll off the tongue as well. It wasn't a bad life. It wasn't the best, most wonderful life under the sun, either, especially with the way the world started to lean as I got older. Still, I had food, I had a basic education and I had freedom. I also had my gadgets; I was a heck of a tinkerer even back then."

"What did you make?"

He shrugged. "Oh, nothing useful. No weapons, not like now. Practical jokes, sometimes gear to help out with the act. I started drawing up plans for stuff that was a little more... ambitious, but by that time the government had put so many restrictions on 'our kind' it was hard enough getting food for everyone, never mind parts for my contraptions.

"But in all, my life was fine in the circus. Hell, it was even a little boring. At about the time things really started to go down the toilet, I was half thinking of getting the heck out of there and making my own way."

"What were you going to do?"

"I hadn't quite figured that out. Rob banks?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"

He looked perfectly sincere. "Why not? Could have been a challenge. In any case, it didn't matter, because the soldiers came soon after.

"Things hadn't been going well in America while I was growing up. Crime was getting worse. Terrorism from people both in and outside of the country was on the up. Some metas went nuts in Washington and killed off a few thousand citizens in one fell swoop, but it wasn't just people with powers. There's nothing much that a meta can do that a guy with a hefty fertiliser bomb or a hijacked airplane can't do.

"So the government decided to restore some 'order' to the country. The criminal element was obviously running rampant, and the good citizens of this fine country had had enough." G smiled bitterly. "One of the government's answers to this was to give 'undesirables' and 'vagrants' good, honest American jobs in nice, well-built American camps with housing attached. It seemed like a great deal to start off with, and to start off with, it probably was. The first camps were voluntary, didn't have walls, and were close to towns. Then the government decided that people weren't taking their offer with enough good grace, and decided that particularly unruly citizens could be 'attached to the camps'. They started building more camps, further out in the country. Then came the walls, and the mass evacuations. Then came the deaths. It was subtle, and a lot of people didn't even realise how bad it was getting. Many still don't." He hesitated and genuine anger flickered across his face. "Or don't want to."

He shook his head, and the bitter smile was back like a mask. "My family got moved in to Camp Hayton later on, when things were getting way out of control. It was a huge, relatively old camp full of mechanical workshops and parts factories, and close enough to a quarry for people to be trucked back and forth from there as well. Plenty to do, in other words. It was built some miles out of Keystone. Surrounded by farmland, some that the camp citizens got to look after and some that was privately owned by people who were mostly willing to turn a blind eye to what they could see happening on their own doorsteps. They were good citizens, after all.

"The first thing that happened was that we were split up. Mum went off with the women; I heard through the camp grapevine that she died from pneumonia. Dad went with the older men. Soon after he was shipped off to another camp and I never saw him again. I think he's dead; I'm fairly sure he's dead. I've never been able to find out, though."

"That's terri..."

"Yes, it's terrible." He looked at her tightly. "Shall I go on?"

Fauna bit her lip. "Right... I'm sorry. I'm listening."

"The second thing that happened was the brands. Well, they call them tattoos; but that's just whitewashing. They were brands, nothing less." He stared at the sewer wall, his eyes somewhere far away. "It was... the most painful experience I've ever had in my life. You have absolutely no idea how _excruciating_... They held me down. And I screamed, and it seemed shameful until you realised everyone else screamed as well."

There was silence, until he shook his head and started again, in a voice that was carefully conversational.

"I was stuck with a lot of young, and a few middle-aged, guys. Scared, in pain, in a crowded and dirty room with a bunch of strangers. They figured we'd be good for the hard, backbreaking labour, so off to the quarry we went. Lucky us. It was awful work, with too little food and not enough sleep, and I spent a week doing it in a kind of numb shock, getting my bearings, trying to comprehend what my life had been reduced to.

"Then I thought, screw this. Why the hell should I sit by and let the bastards do this to me? I was smarter than them; still am. Getting out was going to be difficult, the brand would make it more so. But I could do it. I knew I could do it precisely because they didn't think I'd ever have the balls to try.

"I moved slowly. I moved cleverly. I watched one or two others try to escape, only to be gunned down, and I vowed that that wasn't going to happen to me.

"I had more resources to draw on than most of the people there. Carney life had done me well. On the smarts side, I knew how to grift and I knew how to manipulate, so I started to wheel and deal. I did favours for people and facilitated favours between people. I found out which guards were up for a little corruption and I smuggled food through them in exchange for any valuables that people in my sector had managed to keep hold of. I made myself the person to talk to if you desperately needed something and in the process, I put aside a little stuff for myself. I also got myself regular semi-decent meals. After all, I needed to keep my strength up.

"The other thing I had on my side was the acrobatics, and damn did I use that. No one dared to be outside their dormitory at night, on pain of being shot. I wanted to see if there was any way I could get out of the camp using the rooftops, so I went out regularly. I shimmied up drainpipes and paced the rooftops; I walked the tightrope on electrical cables; I darted through the shadows and avoided the spotlights. I slunk into the workshops and pinched parts that wouldn't be missed. I sidled into the kitchens and grabbed food to barter with. I eavesdropped on conversations and figured out how to get in and out of nearly every building in the camp." He grinned. "And I never got caught."

"That's amazing."

"Hey, I told you I was good. That's not to say I didn't have one or two close calls."

"Close calls?"

"A couple of times. Once I was trying to eavesdrop on a couple of guards right outside the guardhouse, just sitting on the edge of the roof out of their sight. Unfortunately, it was winter, the roof was iced up, and I slipped off the side. I hitched my elbows in the gutter before I fell all the way down, but couldn't pull myself up. I stayed there for what seemed like half the night before they finally left. My arms were so numb I forgot trying to pull myself up and just dropped into the snow bank; luckily it was soft enough that I didn't kill myself. I was a wreck the next few days at work though. I had to stay in the next few nights, which turned out to be a damn good thing because that's when I discovered Piper."

"So some good came from it?"

"Nah. I firmly believe I would have got together with him at some point anyway."

She quirked an eyebrow. "What, it was destiny?"

"Sure, why not? Nothing wrong with destiny kicking in just when you need it. God knows I was getting desperate at that point; the only way I could see of getting out was to tightrope over twenty feet of phone line in full sight of one of the guard towers, and that was obviously not an ideal solution."

"Geez."

"Trust me, save the gaping mouth until you hear what I _did_ end up doing."

* * *

To Be Continued... 


	2. Part Two

"What..."

He flicked his hand at her good-naturedly. "Shush. Anyway, when I say I 'discovered' Piper I mean it literally. You see, every now and again the 'sleeping quarters', and I use the term as loosely as possible, got too damn crowded for the upper echelons, and they did some pruning."

Fauna blanched. "Is it too much to hope that you mean that in the gardening sense?"

G didn't seem to notice the half-hearted joke. His expression had closed up again and his voice was... far too unconcerned.

"Pruning could happen at any time of the day and night and consisted of a bunch of higher-ups stomping in with guards and dragging off a bunch of prisoners, mostly because they were tired and weak-looking, but sometimes just because someone didn't like their face. Usually, said prisoners were never heard from again. The official line was that they were shipped off to other camps, but even the M's weren't stupid enough to believe that."

"M's?" She almost whispered the question. It didn't seem... right, to interrupt.

But he answered, his tone still determinedly untroubled. "Mentally deficient. The retards and nutjobs, as the guards liked to call them.

"The semi-regular meals I'd been getting meant that I never looked weak, and I was always nice and polite to their faces so I wasn't too worried that they'd grab me on impulse. Enough people knew that I could get things that others couldn't, however, for me to be just a bit apprehensive about someone pointing me out. Of course, since half the guards were making deals with me as well, it was doubtful that they'd let anyone squeal. Still, I spent pruning sessions watching people like a hawk and being..." He hesitated fractionally. "Let's say, excessively paranoid."

"During this particular session I was ultra-excessively-paranoid because of my recent close call, so I began to realise something odd. I was watching the whole room, all except for one corner. It was like my eyes kept sliding away from it, like my brain kept telling me that the corner wasn't important. This piqued my curiosity, of course, and I summoned up my willpower and tried to force my eyes to look and my brain to register. There was Piper, sitting pressed into the corner playing a soft tune on what looked like a small flute. No one was paying him the slightest bit of attention, guards and higher-ups included. 

"I was astonished. More than astonished, I was damn impressed. Minor mind-control using music? Seriously, how cool was that? I had to talk to this guy.

"When the guards were gone and things had settled down, I sidled over to where he was curled up on his mattress-sack, and I tapped him on the shoulder and said, 'Okay, you've got to tell me how you did that.' He nearly jumped out of his skin, and turned and glared at me as if I was the devil himself. I knelt on the edge of the bed and I softly told him how I'd seen what he was doing, and he then proceeded to spend half an hour flatly denying everything."

Fauna intercepted tentatively. "I guess you couldn't blame him."

"Oh, I wasn't blaming him in the least. It was every man for himself in the camps, and for all he knew I might be about to rat him out to the guards. It took all my persuasive skills to convince him that I wasn't, that I was seriously interested in what he'd been doing, and that I wanted to work with him. When I finally did convince him, he sat back and gave this challenging look and said, 'Okay fine, just one more thing. You do see the letter I'm wearing, don't you?'

"I said, 'Sure. What, you're going to say they made a mistake?'

"And he said, 'they didn't make a mistake, and I'm not going to pretend to be sorry if you want my help. I don't have any reason to be sorry.'"

Fauna blinked. "That was kinda brave of him under the circumstances, wasn't it?"

"Brave or stupid, I'm sure you could make a case for either." 

"So why do it? I mean geez, I would have just taken any help I could get. I know damn well some people are appalled by the fact that I sometimes sleep with women, but I wouldn't have tried to make any conditions in those circumstances."

G blinked at that. "Ah. You're..."

"It's not so much of a problem in my world." She looked vaguely apologetic. "I mean, it's a problem, but not the extent that... No one's looking to lock me up. Well, not for that, anyway."

He looked deeply sceptical. "In your world."

"Yes, in my world. I'm not insane, okay!"

"Uh-huh."

"Look, don't believe me if you want. It's not like I can do anything to prove my word. Just... I just wanted to know why he did it, that's all."

G stared at her for a few more seconds, and then he shrugged and tried to explain. "Okay. Fine. The thing was? In the camps they took away everything. Your possessions, your time, your dignity. But your pride and conviction? They tried to take them, they really did. But sometimes you felt like you had to hold onto them, because they were all you had left."

"Even if it killed you?"

"Better to die on your feet than live on your knees."

"You really believe that?"

"What me? Oh god no. But I can safely say that Piper does. I think it was what kept him going."

"Oh. Um. So, what did you say to him?"

He shrugged. "Oh, I smiled at him and went, 'I hate it when people try and hide that shit. Let's you and me team up.' So we did.

"He told me his story over the next few nights. I swapped my bed to one next to him and we hissed at each other as quietly as possible until we fell asleep from exhaustion. His name was Hartley Rathaway, he came from a family that was rich, and he hadn't been here long, which is why I hadn't really noticed him up until now. Well, that and the music. 

"His parents had influence and they'd kept him out of the camps for as long as they could. He'd always been too much of a rebel though, and he just wasn't putting enough effort into hiding the fact that he loved men. In the end, they couldn't do anything more to keep him from being carted away. He suspected it was a family friend that had dobbed him in. Ain't high society grand?

"Before the camps he'd been fascinated with sound and had been making real breakthroughs in the area of sonics, especially on the effects of certain tones on the human brain. Like me, he was damn smart. Like me, he was a tinkerer. Like me, he had very little to work with in the camps. He had managed to cobble together the flute, however, and had managed to use it to get the guards to leave him alone." 

"Not to try and escape?"

"Nah. It wasn't powerful or intricate enough to do that, and it was too unpredictable to use in an escape attempt. I mean, I'd seen him without trying too hard, so it stood to reason that anyone who was especially alert would probably spot that something was up. Not to mention that the gates and fences were all locked and electrified, and no shabby little flute was going to help with that. 

"So he kept that guards away whenever he could. He didn't know what else he could do with no parts and no tools. Plus, his background hadn't prepared him for the workload and he was exhausted at night; too exhausted to think about doing anything but surviving.

"'Okay,' I said. We've both been holding on our own. Together we should be able to get the hell out of here, right? 

"We started to plan. Firstly, he promised that if I stuck by him when the guards came in for the pruning I'd be fine. In return, I told him that I'd get him something more to eat, something to get his strength up. I told him about the parts and bits and pieces I'd been hoarding as well, and he got excited and outlined an idea he'd had.

"He was thinking about making a bomb. Now, I hadn't entertained the idea because the explosives shed was the one place in the camp that was just too well guarded for me to get into. Piper's idea for a bomb was a little different from the conventional, though. He wanted to make a sonic bomb. He figured that if he had a power supply and the right parts, he could make something that would escalate throughout all the sonic frequencies until it shook itself and everything around it apart. If we could get it to work and set it on the camp's fence, it would take a huge part of said fence out when it went off. He figured that if we could make a series of the bombs, we could set them throughout the camp and set them off as distractions to get the guards away before the big one on the fence went off, then we could make a run for it in the confusion.

"Some people would dismiss an idea like that as insanity, but I've always been an open thinker. I was also smart enough to understand the principles he was describing and they seemed sound. The hitch, of course, was getting the parts. The camp had plenty of workshops, and some of the stuff I was pretty sure I could get fairly easily. Things like batteries, however? Not so easy. A strict inventory was kept on power sources - they were too likely to be useful to the prisoners. We were stumped on that angle.

"Still, the very fact that we had a plan that was slowly being put into action was comforting to the both of us. The work was just as hellish as usual, but I was feeling almost cheerful. I won't lie, either, having someone to talk to that I at least marginally trusted was good."

"Only 'at least marginally'?"

"Sweetheart, this was the camps. I told you, it was every man for himself. At that stage I trusted him to a point, but if he'd given me up to protect himself, I wouldn't have been surprised. I wouldn't even have blamed him. If I hadn't decided that I needed the skills he had, I'd never have even approached him. As far as I was concerned, a breakout attempt was much safer with as few people knowing about it as possible. It was why I always tried to keep relations with the people in my sleeping quarters on a strictly business level. Knowledge was dangerous, and emotions doubly so."

"So when did you change your mind?"

"That was a bit later. For now I was still wary and so was he. It was only sensible.

"We had to sacrifice some precious sleep time to start putting together the prototype bomb. Piper taught me the trick to his flute and we took it in turns playing the 'we're not interesting' tune and putting it together in the light of a candle I'd swiped from an officer's hut. It would have been faster for us both to work on it together, rather than having one playing and one constructing, but as I said, we were paranoid, and not without good reason. We hid the whole thing under a loose floorboard under Piper's bed when we weren't working on it and crossed all of our fingers that it wouldn't be discovered. That'd be a quick trip to an open grave. 

"We were dead on our feet in the daylight, but hope gave us surprising amounts of strength. After a couple of months, I'd managed to steal or bargain for most of the parts for the prototype and some spares beside. The only real problem was the battery packs we needed, so when the opportunity came for me to get at least one, I jumped for it. In retrospect that may not have been such a great idea, but unfortunately, hope was also making me a little less wary. 

"The guards had apparently decided that my good behaviour meant that I could be trusted to clear a bunch of broken parts from the mechanical workshops. I couldn't believe my luck when I saw the battery pack just sitting on one of the benches and I couldn't possibly let the opportunity slide. I hid it in the junk I was hauling out in a wheelbarrow and got out as quickly as possible, then I stuffed it under the steps of one of the temporary houses that were being used by some of the guards. I figured I could come and get it later."

"So what happened, someone found it?"

"Oh no, no one found it. We even managed to retrieve it a while later. What happened was, someone realised it was missing. I told you that stuff was inventoried. They figured out the approximate time it disappeared and figured out who'd been in the workshop. Luckily it wasn't just me; there were a good few people who'd been in and out. They gathered up all the suspects and demanded someone confess, and when no one did they took people aside and started persuading with metal batons."

"Shit."

"Pretty much. The guards were... Look, I did meet some guards that genuinely seemed okay individually. I don't know what the hell it is about human nature that makes people sink down to the worst level and turn into raging psychos when they get into mobs, but..."

"They were bad?"

He gazed at her. "The thing was, I knew these guys. I hated some of them, true, but I'd made deals with them. I knew them, and everything had been going so damn well up to now and...

"They ground me into the floor and kicked me in the face. They hit my legs with the baton so hard I couldn't stand." He twisted his eyes from hers and scowled at the wall. "They spat on me. And they laughed while they were doing it. In the end I just curled up and prayed for it to stop. I don't pray, ever, but I prayed then."

G stared the wall for a few more seconds, absent-mindedly rubbing a scar that was just visible under his arm sleeve. He continued, "They finally dumped me back in the sleeping area when they'd determined that they weren't going to get anything out of me. I was lucky to get off with what I did. I might have been killed, after all.

"None of the other prisoners wanted to go near me when I got back. They knew I'd been in trouble and they didn't want to be seen as an accomplice, didn't want to get the same. I didn't blame them; I must have looked appalling. I could feel my eye puffing up, the blood trickling down my face. My ears were still ringing and the world looked like someone had bled all the colours out of it. I wanted to throw up; I wanted to faint, and I've no idea how I managed to not do either. And the worst thing? Was that everyone was staring at me out of the corner of their eyes and pretending that I wasn't there. I was curled up against the wall, covered with dirt and blood and spit and no one would even look at me.

"And then Piper stepped forward.

"He ignored the scared looks from everyone else and helped me to my bed. He tipped a little of his water ration onto his shirt and made a passable attempt to clean me up. And then, while others just stared, he leaned over and gently, ever so gently, hugged me. Nothing sexual about it, and nothing childish. Just a hug. Just a token gesture of human contact, of human comfort, in a place where there was little of both...

"I really started to trust him after that. I couldn't make myself not.

"Days turned into weeks before we got back to the plan. I was in a shitty condition and it took that long for me to heal, plus there was the fact that we'd called attention to ourselves and our paranoia had gone into overdrive. 

"I stayed in the same dorm, but got transferred to a work team in the camp instead of in the quarry, so the guards could keep a closer eye on me. Which was good in one way because the work wasn't as hard and I was hurting, but bad in the fact that now the only time we had to talk to each other was at night. We were reluctant to do even that at first. I wouldn't ever have taken it back, but the other prisoners had seen Piper's hug and they were now realising how much time we spent together. I'm sure they thought we were sleeping together, though how they thought we could possibly get the privacy to do that in the cramped dormitories I don't know. Not to mention the fact that even with the extra food I managed to scavenge we were both borderline starving. That doesn't do a lot for your sex drive, trust me. 

"In any case, we were both worried that someone would make a fuss about it to the guards, so we moved away from each other for a while."

"What would the guards do if they thought you were together?"

"Maybe nothing. Maybe..."

"Maybe?"

"Let's just say that some of the guards gave the 'faggots' special treatment. After all, they liked it, didn't they?"

"...Oh."

"It wasn't all of the guards, just the really sick ones, when they decided they needed some 'entertainment'. They took them late at night; dragged them from their sleep. Sometimes you didn't even hear it; all the P's learned pretty quickly that screaming just made it worse."

She stared at him. "I..."

G looked at her calmly. "Question?"

She bit her lip. "Piper was a..."

"Fauna?"

"Uh...yes?"

His gaze was utterly emotionless. "Don't finish that sentence."

She closed her eyes briefly and shuddered "I... yes."

And once more, he continued. 

"Piper used his flute and retrieved the battery pack as soon as we dared to step outside. A few weeks later we finally got the nerve to start back on the prototype. A few days later? We thought we had it down. 

"Now obviously we couldn't test the device, but Piper did cycle it through a few frequencies and everything seemed okay. We figured that now that we had the prototype bomb, we could use some of the parts I'd hoarded to make a few more for distractions; we weren't going to get a foot out of the camp with all the guards' attention on us. There didn't seem like much chance of getting another battery pack, so we sketched out ideas for how we could wire the devices together. After all, we were planning the breakout at night, so it was doubtful that anyone would notice some thin wires running down the corridors between the dormitories, or even through the guttering system. At least not until it was too late; we only had to disguise them until the bombs went off, after all. Yeah, we thought we it down.

"Then it all went to hell, when Piper didn't come back from the quarry one night."

"Oh."

"Yeah. Oh. At first I thought he might have done something wrong that earned him a beating, but then I talked to a couple of others from his work group, and they told me it was worse. He'd been carted off to Dr Amar's late that afternoon.

"The good Doctor... he was the guy that people at the camps had nightmares about. He was a fairly new arrival; had settled in just a few months before, but already he was hated by even the guards. Dr. Amar was there to do medical experiments using people from the camps as test subjects. Technically all of his experiments were supposed to be strictly regulated, but in practice? He was allowed to do whatever the hell he wanted. And what he wanted was...

"I only peeked into his building once during my late night trips, and after what I saw there, I never went back.

"Usually when the doctor wanted test subjects, he took them from people who'd just been pruned, and he took at least a couple at a time. I was baffled as to why he'd drag Piper away on his own from work, but I had a terrible feeling that it couldn't have been for anything good. As soon as night fell I was straight out over the rooftops, and over to his building. Piper was locked in the back, part of what had originally been a bathroom block until the doctor had decided that his building needed some cells. The guards had fulfilled his request by yanking out the showerheads and plumbing, and by the judicious application of a lot of metal bars over every opening. There was a window up near the roof, so I hooked onto the gutter and hissed to him urgently. Luckily--and surprisingly--he was still alive and had all his vital organs."

"He must have been terrified, though."

"He was. Because he knew what the Doctor was planning to do to him tomorrow.

"See, he had a secret that he hadn't told me, hadn't told anyone in the camps. He'd been born deaf."

"What?"

"It was news to me too, though it did help explain the whole sound obsession. Piper had been deaf for the first three years of his life, until his parents managed to fling enough money at the problem to fix it. His ears were filled with micro-robotics, millions of dollars worth. Despite a cursory medical check when he first landed at the camp, no one realised the reason for his excellent hearing until Dr. Amar did a review of the camp medical records. The Doctor would never normally be able to get his hands on technology that innovative, and he was quite willing to personally extract it for the sake of science. It didn't seem likely that he'd care if his patient lived or died and, hey, none of the higher-ups would ask any questions about it. Piper would just disappear like hundreds of others had. He was out of time.

"We were out of time. All of our planning and it'd come to this. Eight hours till dawn, and then there was no way to stop the inevitable. Then Piper was dead."

"And you couldn't let that happen."

"We had talked about this, you know. We were living in the camps. We knew what the deal was. We knew there was a chance that one of us wouldn't make it. We'd talked about it and we'd agreed that if one was caught and the other wasn't, the free one should leave the other behind. We weren't some stupid romantic kiddies. There was simply no point in both of us getting killed if there was a chance for one to survive. And I...

"He told me to leave him and I did, because we'd talked about it, and I was a sensible person, and I needed to look out for number one and...

"I grabbed the bomb, and his pipe, and a coil of wire from where we'd hidden them, and I went back. I couldn't leave him. I physically couldn't do it." He looked at her ruefully and shook his head. "I didn't even know why, but I couldn't.

"Desperation had given me an idea. It was crazy, and not at all safe, and it was likely that we'd both end up dying from it instead of just him, but hey, you have to go sometime, right? I placed the bomb first, though I didn't set the timer on it yet. I set it at the base of one of the guard towers, and then I scaled the rooftops again, went back to Piper, and threw him his pipe through the window."

She bit her lip and smiled slightly. "What was his reaction?"

"Well, there was the shock at first, and he was understandably a little put out that his noble sacrifice was going to be ignored in favour of a plan that was iffy at best, but he didn't argue too much. I mean, come on, would you? Me, I wasn't letting myself think about it. I'd made a decision, it was quite possibly a pretty shitty decision, but I was afraid that if I let myself think about it I'd lose the adrenaline that was keeping me going. There was no going back, for either of us.

"I told him to start playing his pipe the moment I finished securing the wire to the window. See, the bars that had been put in were fairly sturdy, but the concrete they were set in wasn't. Turning the block into cells was a patch job, after all. If I pulled from the ground, I was hoping that I could get enough leverage to yank one or two of the bars out; then I could use the wire to pull Piper through the window. It'd be a tight squeeze for him, and I'd have to keep out of sight of the guards on the ground, but it was just about possible and more likely to succeed than sneaking through Dr Amar's heavily guarded buildings. Of course it was going to make a hell of a racket, but that was where the Piper came in. Hopefully the 'don't look at me' music would work to deflect any attention for just long enough."

"So, did it work?"

"Surprisingly well, for all that. A few guards wandered near, but they wandered away again when they heard the music. I slid to the ground and pulled with all my body weight, and with a few minutes of effort I shifted the bars. Nearly killed myself when the second one went flying towards me, but by then I was so hyped up, I had the reactions of a hummingbird. Piper wasn't much of an athlete, but he was desperate, and I managed to manhandle him out without breaking his neck. He wasn't a good enough acrobat to use the rooftop method to navigate the place though, so we used a bit of music to avoid the guards."

"I still don't get how you were planning to get out though. You still had only one bomb, right? If you blew up the fence without any distractions beforehand, the guards would just come running straight there."

"Dead right. So we did something else. Remember back when I said that the only way I could see of getting out was to tightrope over twenty feet of phone line in full sight of one of the guard towers?"

"Uh-oh."

"I didn't put the bomb near the fence, I put it on the fuse box near that guard tower. They did have back-up lights they could hook up, but hopefully it would give us just enough time to get across in the dark before someone saw us. Hopefully, anyway.

"Piper was appalled when he heard what I'd planned, and I can't say I blamed him. Hell, walking a slack cable on a relatively windy night in pitch-blackness over an electric fence and then getting down safely was going to be difficult enough for me, and I was an expert. He could barely be called an amateur. He was scared witless. I wasn't much better." G sighed. "But there were seven hours until dawn, and certain death. Neither of us had any choice; we had to do this. So we set the bomb, and we climbed up the phone tower, and we waited."

"Even when we knew it was coming, the almighty screech the bomb gave almost sent us off the edge. It worked, thank god. The lights on the tower went dead, and guards started shouting, and we whispered hollow encouragements to each other and started to walk. Piper held onto my shoulders in abject terror, and I did most of the balancing. Even today I can't believe we actually made it across. We were literally inching over, not daring to go any faster. Piper was shaking the cable with each step and I nearly pulled us both off at least twice. The wind wasn't actually that bad, but when you're up that high on something that thin, even a gentle breeze is a complete nightmare. Still, we blanked out the shouts and sounds of panic behind us, and we walked, and after an eternity, we reached the phone pole and got the hell down as quickly as possible. 

"Then the lights started up again, and the shouts intensified, and we ran like hell.

"I swear we were so damn close to cover when one of the searchlights spotted us. They tried to shoot and couldn't get a bead on us at that range, but that just meant that they were going to send out search parties to try and pick up the escapees. I remember being so fucking angry at that. So damn close, and now they were going to hunt us like rabbits. That's great if you're in any shape to run like a rabbit." He kicked at a sewer pipe. "Crap if you're tired, starved and cold.

"There was a river... well, a creek really, winding a mile away from the camp. Coincidentally, a mile was all we could run, even on pure adrenaline. The night was cold, and the water was worse, but there were reeds near the riverbank that we could hide in, and Piper pointed out that being in the water would also help disguise us if they were using heat detectors. Even so, it was only when I heard them coming that I forced myself in.

"I have never been as cold as I became that night, not before or since. When the first search party came we forced ourselves almost completely under, with only our noses and mouths out of the water and hidden amongst the reeds. Their flashlight skimmed right over us and it was frankly a miracle that we weren't seen. When the first party passed we pulled our heads above water and headed downstream, and it was agonising going. We were shaking with cold, pulling ourselves against the current and then dragging ourselves over to hide in the reeds when another search party came close. After a while we had to stop every few minutes and cling to each other for warmth, just sitting there, curled together in the water, trying desperately to keep from going completely numb from the cold. Soon even that wasn't holding back the chill and we were beginning to panic when we finally saw the farmhouse. We knew that making a break for there was a hell of a risk; we also knew that we were going to freeze to death if we didn't.

"We checked to make sure the lights of the search teams were a reasonable way away and then we stumbled out of the water and half-walked, half-staggered towards the farm. We knew damn well not to hope for help from anyone in the building. Anyone who lived this close to the camps would have to be blind not to know what was happening there. How could we possibly trust them? All we were going there to find was a hiding spot, preferably one that was warm. We were lucky, god we were lucky. The farmhouse was old and the basement could be accessed through an unlocked coalscuttle on the outside. We crawled in on our hands and knees, still shuddering with cold, and then we dragged ourselves over to where the water heater was and pulled ourselves into the shadows under there. We fell into a heap, our arms twisted tightly around each other."

"Trying to get warm?"

"Yes. But it was also... a confirmation that we were still alive. Even as we got warmer I couldn't, wouldn't, let go. We were alive. I..."

He paused, and looked slightly embarrassed. "I remember putting my ear on his chest, just listening to his heartbeat. I was so exhausted. The adrenaline rush was wearing off, and I knew that neither of us had the strength to move. Piper was half unconsciousness, and I just wanted to let go as well. But I couldn't. Not yet. I had to keep a lookout. If any of the search parties came there... well, there wouldn't have been much I could do. I guess I just felt like I wanted to be conscious if I was going to be killed."

"You didn't want to wake up dead."

"Heh. Good one. So, we stayed in the shadows for hours, just clinging to each other. Despite my determination, I was half asleep when I heard the search party arrive upstairs.

"It wasn't like it was a huge surprise. I knew there wasn't much chance that they wouldn't have people searching the local buildings. It'd been a few hours though, and we'd been safe, and I'd almost been believing that it was all over, and now... 

"There wasn't much point in trying to get out of the house. After all, there were guards outside. I managed to shake Piper awake and we pulled ourselves back into the shadows more, tried to cover ourselves with some of the debris that was lying around."

"And it worked?"

He looked at her thoughtfully. "No. No, it didn't."

"Huh? But..."

"They split up their party to search the house. The guard that came into the basement... he was just a kid, you know. Couldn't have been more than eighteen. He wore camp uniform, but I hadn't seen him around. Hell, probably hadn't been at Hayton for long at all. He paced down the stairs, and he searched, his gun at the ready to kill the hideous escapees. And we crushed ourselves into the shadows, but it did no good. He pulled aside a box, looked under the heater, and there we were.

"It felt like we stared at each other for eternity. Me and Piper huddled against the wall, against each other, staring blindly at the guy who'd been sent to kill us, shivering and gaping like startled rabbits. I wanted to do something, anything, but I was just at my limit. I couldn't even move, and he didn't seem inclined to, and it was only when one of his fellow guards yelled down asking if he'd found anything that the spell was broken. 

"This guy, this kid. He stared at us for a few seconds more. Then, without turning his head, his eyes not even leaving my face, he yells up. 'Nothing here, sir!' And he steps away, and he puts the box back, and he walks back up the stairs."

"He let you go..."

"He let us go. Just this kid, and he saved both of our lives with one sentence. I don't know if they found out, if he was punished. I never saw him again. I don't even know what his name was. I don't know why he did it."

To be Concluded... 


	3. Part Three

Disclaimers and notes in the first bit. And if I haven't already, (because I left it out of one or two posts) can I thank Carmen Williams profusely for betaing:-)

* * *

"Maybe he was secretly working for the rebellion."

"Maybe. Maybe he couldn't kill someone who'd looked him in the eye." G paused, and there was a glint in his eye. "Maybe he was in the closet and he couldn't bear to see our beautiful selves die so tragically."

Fauna blinked at the sudden change in tone, but when he grinned, she found herself grinning back. "Gee, that must have been it."

"Hey, don't underestimate the lure of my rippling pectorals."

She smirked at him. "Okay, if you start talking like Fabio I'm so going to whip your butt."

He smirked back. "I don't know who Fabio is, but this butt whipping sounds tempting."

"Hey, you're not seducing my lover, are you? I went to all this trouble to rescue you too!"

At the sound of the voice, they both turned. Piper stood near the entrance of the room, looking amused.

The Gunsmith grinned at his partner blithely. "I don't know. She's cute, but I don't think she'd have your butt whipping skill."

"That's true. I am pretty superb at butt whipping."

She made a face. "You know, this conversation is getting worse and worse."

Piper flicked back the braids in his hair and hooked a pipe onto a leather pouch at his side. "She has got a point. Maybe you should finish the story."

G gave him a shrewd look. "And just how long _have_ you been listening?"

"I can't imagine what you're talking about," Piper said cheerfully. "Want me to finish?"

"I think I can manage fine, thanks so much." He turned back. "So this guy had just left, and we couldn't believe our luck."

"Okay, _you_ might have been thinking that. My brain was going, 'Me go sleep now tiredzzzz...'."

G rolled his eyes elaborately. "Fine. I was thanking god and my esteemed partner was falling asleep. You can see who's the go-getter in this relationship, can't you? It's the high society background thing. He's never gotten over it."

"Pish. Quiet down, plebeian."

"We stayed the night huddled in the basement, then waited until the house's occupants were out before we raided the place. I never thought there'd be a time when I'd be so damn delighted by a set of warm, dry clothes. I'll say this, the camps may have done me little other good, but they did force me to get my priorities in order.

"We bundled up, took food, and went overland towards Keystone City for no other reason than we suspected it would be easier to survive there with all the people. After all, it looked like stealing to survive was going to become routine from now on. We were marked, and had no papers, and quite frankly we looked like..."

"Like we'd just escaped from a work camp." Piper shrugged. "Funny, that."

"Right. So we headed to the city. Walked at night, slept during the day, mostly in haystacks and the like. We both felt like hell, but our spirits were as high as the sky. Freedom does that to you.

"We arrived in the city a few days later and disappeared underground. Literally; the sewers are nasty, but they're damn good hiding places. A few weeks and we'd established some kind of routine and managed to steal enough to get by on, so we sat down and tried to figure out what we were going to do with our lives."

Piper sighed. "There was no going back to what we had before. To be honest, I wasn't exactly regretting that, but G had actually enjoyed his life. And it was a little scary, realising that you were always going to be stuck on the fringes."

G took over again. "I've always found that the best way to get over your fears is to embrace them, and that's what we did. The government is evil and society is going to hell. We could see that clear as glass, and we could see that there were a lot of other people out there hurting, and they didn't deserve their lot anymore than we'd deserved ours. Maybe our lives would have been easier if we'd gone into hiding, but we were damned if we were going to hide. We were rebels? Fine. We'd be the rebels from their nightmares.

"We started stealing parts and supplies and went into tinkering overdrive. Piper worked on his pipes and started figuring out how to adjust things to screw with people's minds properly. Me, I gave up on the useless gadgets and got into full-blown weaponry."

"Hey, you still dive into the 'useless gadgets' every once in a while. Sometimes they don't even turn out to be that useless. You're wearing the anti-gravity shoes, for heaven's sake."

G agreed readily. "Well okay, mostly I got into full blown weaponry. I have to admit, the shoes are cool. I'm so glad I finally got around to making them."

"Ooookay."

"So anyway. We prepared stuff, we trained. We made sure we were damn good, and then we took the town by storm. We may not be able to get people out of the camps, but you better believe that we do everything possible to free them before they get that far."

"We also get rid of police patrols that are harassing citizens, blow up the occasional government building, mess with the propaganda that gets pumped out of the radio and television stations..."

"Basically? We kick butt very well." G gave his partner a fond look. "We've been kicking it for almost fifteen years now."

"Geez."

Piper shrugged. "Hey, it's a living."

"Well, it's a pretty cool one. And god knows I'm lucky you're doing it, because otherwise I would have been screwed." She looked slightly awkward. "Umm, could I ask one last thing?"

"Yeah?"

"When did you... well, y'know, decide to hook up? I mean properly... Uh. You don't have to answer that if..."

G smiled. "You're right. I don't have to answer that."

"Right. Okay. Shutting up now."

Piper shook his head and gave his partner an amused look. "Anyway, if we've got that out of the way, I managed to rustle up some new clothes for our guest. Detention wear tends to be oddly conspicuous on the town."

The woman looked grateful. "Thank you! These things are itchy. I don't think they even washed them after the last person wore them."

G shrugged. "Probably took them off their corpse."

She froze. "Okay... I think I wanna change right now thanks."

Piper nodded to the corner. "You can go around behind those pipes. Don't worry, _I _won't look."

"I scoff at his lack of appreciation for the female form, but alas he has me on a short leash."

"Damn right. Now roll over."

"Will you pet me if I do?"

"Not in front of the female form, I'm afraid..."

Smiling to herself, she left them to banter and went to change.

* * *

It wasn't that she was deliberately eavesdropping. It was just that they were only around the corner, and they weren't talking _that _softly. It was just... an accident that she heard them...

"So what was that about?" Piper sounded seriously curious.

"What was what all about?"

"You know what I'm talking about. Why tell her all of that? The whole story? I mean, geez, I didn't even realise you remembered it all. Not in that much detail, anyway..."

"But you weren't listening at all."

"I came in on the escape proper, okay? Happy now?"

"Generally, yeah."

"So."

"So?"

"Are you avoiding my question deliberately, or just out of habit?"

G sighed. "I'm not exactly sure why I told her, alright? And to be honest, it probably doesn't matter. I think she's kind of insane anyway."

"She still thinks she's from another world? Crap."

"Hey, she could be telling the truth. Stranger things have happened."

"Name one."

"Well, we're together, aren't we?"

There was silence. Then...

"You've been thinking deeply lately, haven't you?"

"More than I usually do. Hart, did you know that tomorrow it'll be fifteen years to the day since we got out of there?"

"...I didn't. I hadn't really thought about it."

"We never do, do we? We live each day as it comes. We have to, otherwise we'd go mad. This life... this isn't exactly a gold mine of a life, looking at it from the outside in. It must be hard for most people to imagine why we'd be happy. Sometimes I wonder to myself why it is I'm content. And in the end, it all comes down to you."

She bit her lip, blinked her eyes furiously and sniffed. And leaned closer to catch the whispered phrases...

"...know I love you."

"I can't not. You know, when were in the farmhouse, way back then? I lay there listening to your heartbeat. My head on your chest, and every time I heard another beat, my own heart jumped, because it meant you were still alive." His voice was soft, almost too soft to hear. "I realised that I loved you then. It was kind of weird, and god knows it was a revelation to me, but I was glad that it was there to cling to. I don't know what I'd be like if it hadn't been. I'm sorry if it bothered you, that I told her. But it's been fifteen years, and I needed to talk about it. It needed to be told. "

"That's why?"

"Yes. Because it's a good story, a wonderful story. It's our story. It's painful as hell in some parts, but I want it out there when we die, and god knows, we're really stretching our lucky run here. It deserves to be out there. I hope she passes it on."

"I hope she does too." A pause. "If you die, I'll die too. Does that make me a romantic kiddie?"

"Fifteen years, Hart. If you are, I am too."

* * *

**Epilogue**

Fauna Faust sat at a nice table, in a nice house, a thousand worlds away from that night. Her eyes though, they looked back. "'If you are, I am too.' The way they said it was just... Dude, _I_ want to have a relationship like that. Hell, I want to have a relationship that's half as intense as that. That was love. That was devotion. That was... emotions that I didn't even realise were actually real things. They lived for each other, and they were _happy_, even after everything that had happened."

Her sole audience member looked like he didn't quite know what to say. "Well... That was certainly... unexpected."

She sniffed and rubbed a hand over her eyes over her eyes. "Hey, you were the one who wanted to know why I called you G when I first met you. Don't blame me for being weirded out. And also? James Jesse? Why didn't you just stick with Giovanni like he did? I quite liked that name."

"Hey, it was my stage name. Plus, I had a thing for outlaws when I was a kid."

"I'd say you were a weird kid if I had any idea of what a normal kid actually did. Anyway, I am glad I told you, because I really have been meaning to tell _someone_. They were right, it deserves to be told."

James Jesse raised an eyebrow. "Just not to anyone on your spiffy new team?"

"Dude, Piper's on my new team. What the hell am I supposed to tell him?"

"Well, you could tell him to stop acting so mopey."

"I've already been telling him that. I don't think knowing about an alternate version of himself is going to help, especially when..."

James smirked. "When what? He lived happily ever after while joyfully boinking me? You're saying someone could be unhappy about that?"

But Fauna was staring at him, her eyes glassy with tears, and he winced as he realised why.

"...Except that that's not what happened, is it?"

She closed her eyes against the tears and shook her head. "It was later, a little before we got back. I'd found the others, and they'd found out that the guy who could get us to our own world was being held in a detention building in Central City. G and Piper volunteered to help us get him out; I didn't even need to ask. But then it all went to hell when we found the guy, and there was a sniper..."

"Oh."

"Piper got hit in the head. He was dead before he hit the ground. The blood was just... I turned to G, and his face was like ice. Just totally... cold and dead. And he told us to go, that he'd cover us, and I didn't argue with him because I knew, I just knew, that there was no way I could possibly stop him. It was what he wanted. It was..." She stifled a sob.

He frowned and tactfully went to find a tissue box.

When he came back she'd composed herself. "I'm sorry. I don't cry a lot. Or at all, really. It's just that they were so..."

He smiled comfortingly. "Completely the opposite to this universe's version of me and him?"

She managed a watery smile in return. "I don't think he was that different from you."

James Jesse raised an eyebrow.

"I mean, he was quite nice, and you seem quite nice."

Both eyebrows were raised at that. "Obviously I haven't been trying hard enough lately."

Fauna gave him a challenging look. "Hey, come on. I've seen nasty. I was raised by an evil supervillain and I belong to a team that's led by a guy with a homicidal multiple personality. You're annoying, sure, but you're not horribly disagreeable."

"Thanks muchly."

"Okay, obviously the sleeping with guys thing might be a bit strange for you personally..."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?"

She gave him a look. "I am trying to be polite, you know. With the whole 'you're quite nice, actually'?"

He smirked at her. "You know, the 'raised by an evil supervillain' thing? I really can't tell."

"Ah shut up. Look, I'm just saying, okay. Being near those two for just a few days was totally... "

He looked at her incredulously. "Okay, I give up. Why are you telling me this again? Because it can't possibly be for the reason I suspect it is."

Fauna managed an innocent smile. "Just because it's a good story, that's all. Why else?"

"Are you still here?" Piper was frowning as he walked into the room. "I thought you left ages ago."

James Jesse turned in the chair and his expression dropped into a practiced grin. "I've actually spent the whole time trying to find the door. Who built this place, Escher?"

Fauna hastily rubbed the last of the tears from her eyes and glared at him. "We were talking," she told Piper. "He's going in a sec."

"Apparently, however, I'm going in a sec."

Piper sighed. "Right. Whatever. I'm just getting some hot cocoa, don't mind me."

Fauna yawned widely. "I'm actually going to go get some sleep. You wanna let him out?"

Piper rolled his eyes. "I'm sure he can manage."

"Oh well, night!" She flashed a smile to James's raised eyebrow and wandered out of the room.

Piper frowned at his semi-welcome guest. "What exactly was that about?"

James looked at him a little strangely. "I don't think you want to know."

Piper was confused and slightly annoyed. "Jesse, I'm tired and I'm just not in the mood for your games, okay? I've got enough of a headache as it is."

"Oh? You okay?"

He blinked. "You care?"

There was a vaguely uneasy silence as they stared at each other, and then James got up. "I've got to go now, anyway."

Piper shrugged, still baffled. "Fine. Let yourself out."

"Right." He hesitated for a second, and frowned. "Right."

He walked away.

* * *

And that's all she said. Comments? 


End file.
